Free Republic

McConnell is trying to bring back the crony bank, Ex-Im Bank. It sunset at end of June 2015. Now he plans to tie it to a highway bill. At Wednesday’s press conference, Cruz will be joined by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas), chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

If I were negotiating this deal on behalf of the IMF and the EU, one term I would demand is the resignation of the socialist government It’s the third bailout of Greece in five years. Heck, even Chrysler must be appalled at a performance like that. And while we’re still waiting for the details, early reports indicate that Greece’s socialist government had to accept much more stringent terms than the ones they told Greek voters to reject just last week. It’s easy just telling everyone yes to whatever they want until you run out of stuff to give them. That’s...

As European Union leaders push Greece for more austerity reforms, Athens enters political crisis and social media erupts in response. A two-day emergency meeting on Greece’s economic future ended Sunday with strict conditions from the European Union, including contentious austerity reforms, if it wants a new bailout and keep the euro. To meet the conditions for fresh aid packages and a third bailout that Greece needs to avoid bankruptcy, European finance ministers want Greece to pass a series of austerity measures--including tax and pension reforms-- through Parliament and put them into law by Wednesday. Greece will also have to lose...

Almost every option facing debt-drenched Greece is bad, but there is only one that will end this Greek tragedy for good. Let Greece go bankrupt. Then let this once-rich nation, hit the restart button to rebuild its economy. What I’m suggesting for Greece is what might be called the Detroit option. Put Greece under receivership and let these new authorities figure out how to manage the debt and decide who will take a haircut and how big. Pensioners, bondholders, welfare recipients, government workers, the International Monetary Fund, all will have to settle for less — maybe a lot less. It’s...

Euro zone countries tried in vain to stop the IMF publishing a gloomy analysis of Greece's debt burden which the leftist government says vindicates its call to voters to reject bailout terms, sources familiar with the situation said on Friday. The document released in Washington on Thursday said Greece's public finances will not be sustainable without substantial debt relief, possibly including write-offs by European partners of loans guaranteed by taxpayers. It also said Greece will need at least 50 billion euros in additional aid over the next three years to keep itself afloat. Publication of the draft Debt Sustainability Analysis...

Greece joins Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe on the latest to be in debt to the International Monetary Fund. As Athenians rallied underneath thunderclouds to show their support for keeping Greece in the eurozone of single currency nations, their broke government defaulted on a $2.2-billion payment to the International Monetary Fund. At midnight on Tuesday, Greece joined Sudan, Somalia and Zimbabwe as countries in arrears to the IMF. Also at midnight, the bailout assistance package that began in February 2012 formally expired, leaving Greece without access to any emergency finances. In Washington, the IMF acknowledged that Greece had failed to meet...

... Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke by phone with Mr. Juncker and European Parliament President Martin Schulz and asked for help getting an extension to the bailout, a Greek government official said. “The Greek prime minister [Tsipras]expressed the position that the democratic expression of the Greek people is hindered by the closure of banks, which doesn’t apply with the democratic tradition of Europe,” the official said. ... Mr. Tsipras and his government are calling on Greeks to vote “no” to send a signal to Europe and the IMF

<p>Greece and its principal creditors—the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund—should acknowledge that Athens will never be able to repay the €131 billion it owes, write down its debt and let the Aegean nation exit the euro gracefully.</p>

BRUSSELS/ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras summoned an urgent meeting of his cabinet on Friday after euro zone partners warned Athens it had until the weekend to accept a cash-for-reform deal or plunge towards default. Despite angry rhetoric and accusations of "blackmail", negotiations were continuing in Brussels to find a last-ditch compromise to keep Greece in the euro zone to avoid a political train-wreck, economic chaos and financial market disruption. ... He said there was no foundation for the increasing speculation in Athens that Tsipras could call snap elections if a deal cannot be reached. ... In a...

.... The International Monetary Fund is in very serious trouble. Events have reached a point in Greece where the Fund's own credibility and long-term survival are at stake. The Greeks are not withholding a €300m payment to the IMF because they have run out of money, though they soon will do. .... They knew exactly what they were doing. The IMF’s Christine Lagarde was caught badly off guard. Staff officials in Washington were stunned. .... The IMF’s Original Sin in Greece was to allow the urbane Parisian Dominique Strauss-Kahn to hijack the institution to prop up Europe’s monetary union and...

Greece is to take the drastic step of skipping a €300m payment to the International Monetary Fund on Friday, invoking an obscure mechanism in abeyance since the 1970s to bundle all debts due in June and pay them at the end of the month. It is the first time that a developed country has ever missed a payment to the IMF since the creation of the Bretton Woods institutions at the end of the Second World War. The news broke after the Athens stock exchange had closed but a bloodbath is feared when the bourse opens on Friday. Yields on...

Just months before the most important U.N. climate conference in years, Republican appropriators in the House of Representatives are taking aim at one of the Obama administration’s most cherished priorities—international climate change funding. An appropriations bill for the State Department and foreign operations, released Tuesday, excludes funding for three major climate initiatives—the Green Climate Fund, the Clean Technology Fund, and the Strategic Climate Fund—and also removes funding for the U.N.-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Also in the firing line is funding for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and debt relief. …

Tyler Durden 06/04/2015 09:41 -0400 Anxiety over financial stability and shadow banking risks appear to have force Christine Lagarde and her fellow extrapolators to hit the panic button: •*IMF CUTS U.S. 2015 GROWTH FORECAST TO 2.5% FROM 3.1% •*FED SHOULD WAIT FOR TANGIBLE SIGNS OF WAGE, PRICE GAINS: IMF •*DOLLAR `MODERATELY OVERVALUED,' CURBING U.S. GROWTH, JOBS: IMF •*IMF URGES FED TO DELAY FIRST RATE INCREASE UNTIL 1H 2016 Adding that they viewed the Dollar as "moderately overvalued" and any more appreciation would be "harmful," it seems global disinflationary pressures have left the IMF no choice but to say publicly what...

Anxiety over financial stability and shadow banking risks appear to have force Christine Lagarde and her fellow extrapolators to hit the panic button: -IMF CUTS U.S. 2015 GROWTH FORECAST TO 2.5% FROM 3.1% -FED SHOULD WAIT FOR TANGIBLE SIGNS OF WAGE, PRICE GAINS: IMF -DOLLAR `MODERATELY OVERVALUED, CURBING U.S. GROWTH, JOBS: IMF -IMF URGES FED TO DELAY FIRST RATE INCREASE UNTIL 1H 2016 Adding that they viewed the Dollar as "moderately overvalued" and any more appreciation would be "harmful," it seems global disinflationary pressures have left the IMF no choice but to say publicly what everyone has uttered under their...

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a law allowing Ukraine to impose a moratorium on repayment of its foreign debt until at least July 2016, a press release on Poroshenko's official website said Thursday. The Ukrainian parliament approved the bill, which could affect repayment of the country's $3-billion debt to Russia on May 19. Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier the bill de facto was an announcement of a default, casting a negative light on the professionalism of Ukraine's leadership. Moreover, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that Moscow would turn to an international court if the Ukrainian president signed...

Billionaire investor George Soros told the World Bank this week that the planet is on the verge of a third world war that could arise out of an economic collapse in China. “If there is conflict between China and a military ally of the United States, like Japan, then it is not an exaggeration to say that we are on the threshold of a third world war,” Soros said during a Bretton Woods conference. . . . . Soros said the only solution to the prospect was to allow China to join the IMF’s basket of global currencies so that...

What the EPA is attempting to impose on America is a drain on our production of electricity coupled with an increase in its price. It is an obscene attack on our economy There are many things I do not like about the Environmental Protection Agency, but what angers me most are the lies that stream forth from it to justify programs that have no basis in fact or science, and which threaten the economy. Currently, its “Clean Power” plan is generating its latest and most duplicitous Administer, Gina McCarthy, to go around saying that it will not be costly, nor...

Fossil fuel companies are benefiting from a global subsidy of £3.4 trillion a year, the International Monetary Fund has declared. The figure dwarfs that of government handouts for renewable energies, which amount to £77 billion a year. But closer inspection reveals the fossil fuel related sum not to be a subsidy, as it amounts to nothing more than the alleged costs to governments of dealing with fossil fuel pollution. The IMF have insisted that their figure is “shocking,” but “extremely robust”, and are using it to lobby for an end to “subsidies” for fossil fuel companies on both health and...

Fossil fuel companies are benefitting from global subsidies of $5.3tn (£3.4tn) a year, equivalent to $10m every minute of every day, according to a startling new estimate by the International Monetary Fund. The IMF calls the revelation “shocking” and says the figure is an “extremely robust” estimate of the true cost of fossil fuels. The $5.3tn subsidy estimated for 2015 is greater than the total health spending of all the world’s governments. The vast sum is largely due to polluters not paying the costs imposed on governments by the burning of coal, oil and gas. These include the harm caused...

Greece emptied an IMF holding account to repay 750 million euros ($840 million) due to the fund, a Greek central bank official said, avoiding default but underscoring the dire state of the country's finances. With Athens close to running out of cash and a deal with its international creditors still elusive, there had been doubts about whether the leftist-led government would pay the IMF or opt to save cash to pay salaries and pensions later this month. Greece, like all other International Monetary Fund members, holds reserves from the IMF that are denominated in Special Drawing Rights (SDR), a basket...